Merchants, such as retailers, may use multiple services provided by third-party service providers. These services may include credit card processing services, inventory services, customer loyalty program services, fraud prevention services, security services and employee time, payroll services, billing services, reporting services, and commission tracking services.
While such third-party services are useful, there may be several drawbacks associated with such systems. First, each third-party service may provide different methods or means to the merchant for accessing the service. For example, one third-party service provider may require the merchant to access the service using a web browser, another third-party service provider may require the merchant to access the service by providing a file of a particular format, and another third-party service provider may require the merchant to use a specialized device to access the service. Thus, interacting with such third-party services may require many separate transactions and/or steps by the merchant.
Second, merchants often accept payment from purchasers using a variety of modern and legacy retail processing systems such as point-of-sale devices and electronic cash registers. Some of these systems may not be supported or well-integrated with respect to each third-party service provider, forcing the merchant to purchase new processing systems. Moreover, because of the variety of retail processing systems being used, third-party service providers may not be able to provide assistance to a merchant in the event that a transaction cannot be completed.